First Appearance:L'Homme Qui Peut Vivre dans l'Eau (The Man
Who Could Live Underwater, serialised in Le Matin daily newspaper, 1908)

Powers/Abilities:The Nyctalope was a super-powered avenger
who could see in the dark with his eerie yellow eyes and sported an artificial
heart.

History: "God sometimes allows His Infallible Justice and Rightful
Wrath to manifest themselves upon the face of this Earth... And you are that
manifestation... You, the Nyctalope!"

(L'Assassinat du Nyctalope (The Assassination Of The Nyctalope)) When
Léo Sainte-Claire was 20, an assassination attempt was made on his
life. He survived, but gained superhuman abilities and an artificial heart
as a result.

(L'Homme Qui Peut Vivre dans l'Eau (The Man Who Could Live Underwater))
When two megalomaniacal villains, Oxus and the mad monk Fulbert, grafted
shark gills onto a hapless victim, turning him into the Ichtaner, a
water-breathing man, they were opposed by Severac, a formidable engineer
who had designed the Torpedo, a super-powerful submarine. Severac was assisted
by Jean de Sainte-Claire, and in the end he won the day, thwarting the villains;
the Ichtaner was restored to normality by the surgeon Balsan.

(Le Mystère des XV (The Mystery Of The XV)) Oxus returned and
tried to conquer Mars with the help of a secret society of 15 other villains,
and breed a new race of supermen with young girls kidnaped from Earth. However,
he faced the opposition of (H. G. Wells') Martians, and was ultimately defeated
by the Nyctalope.

(Lucifer) The Nyctalope challenged the megalomaniacal Baron Glo von
Warteck, aptly nicknamed "Lucifer," who from his citadel in Bermuda, tried
to enslave humanity with his devilish "Omega Rays" and his "teledyname".
Along the way, the Nyctalope first met his friend and ally, the Japanese
ambassador Gno Mitang, and acquired two indomitable Corsican bodyguards,
Vitto and Soca. He ultimately established the C.I.D., the Committee of
Information and Defense (against Evil), and defeated Lucifer.

(Le Roi de la Nuit (The King Of The Night)) The Nyctalope flew to
Rhea, an unknown satellite of Earth, using a spacecraft patented by Dr. Cavor,
and settled a war between its winged day-siders and night-siders. At the
end of the adventure, the Nyctalope married Veronique d'Olbans, who must
have died soon after since she was not seen in subsequent tales.

(L'Amazone du Mont Everest (The Amazon Of Mount Everest)) The Nyctalope
discovered a hidden Tibetan civilization of Amazons, and left with their
former Queen, Mizzeia Khali.

(L'Antéchrist (The Antichrist)) The Nyctalope faced his greatest
villain ever: Leonid Zattan, truly evil incarnate. The Nyctalope was the
instrument of the mysterious Jewish wizard, Mathias Lumen, in an ultimate
battle between Good and Evil. During this escapade he met Gno Mitang's ward,
Sylvie Mac Dhul, who later became his wife.

(Titania) Zattan's ally the "Red Princess" Diana Ivanovna Krasnoview,
Queen of the Hashishins, returned under the alias of Titania, this time allied
to the mad engineer Korridès. Together they fought the Nyctalope who,
by then, had fathered a son named Pierre with Sylvie. With the help of his
friends and allies, the Nyctalope prevailed. Diana was killed by a young
gypsy girl, and Korridès committed suicide.

(Belzébuth) However, Zattan and Titania had fathered a son
too: the savage, yet brilliant, Hughes Mézarek, a.k.a. in Belzébuth,
who sent the Nyctalope's wife and son to the future year 2100. The Nyctalope
followed and defeated Mézarek before returning to his own time period
with his wife and son. Interestingly, in the future, the Nyctalope met friendly
descendants of Oxus and Balsan.

(Gorillard) The Nyctalope fought Gorillard (in reality Dominique de
Soto, a man of many aliases), an arch-enemy of the Saint-Clair family, who
had become master of the Seven Living Buddhas. Gorillard used secret Oriental
science and psychic powers to threaten the West.

(Les Mystères de Lyon (The Mysteries Of Lyons)) The Nyctalope
fought Alouh T'Ho, daughter of T'seu Hsi, the imperatrix of China who, despite
being born in 1852, looked like a 25-year-old girl because she and her secret
cult stole other people's lifeforce.

(La Sorcière Nue (The Naked Sorceress)) Alouh T'Ho returned
to menace the world again, once more opposed by the Nyctalope.

(Rien qu'une Nuit (Only One Night)) In 1941 the Nyctalope appeared
to succumbed to the charms of collaboration with the Nazis.

Comments: The Nyctalope was created by Jean de La Hire.

According to the most reliable internal chronology one may derive from the
series, the Nyctalope was born circa 1890 (the years of 1879 and 1892 are
mentioned in different books). His adventures roughly take place between
1908 and 1940.

Le Mystère des XV (The Mystery Of The XV), published in 1911, was
later retitled Le Secret des XII in a subsequent edition, with Oxus renamed
Arkhus.

The Nyctalope also had problems keeping his name straight - in his first
appearance, he was Jean de Sainte-Claire; in Lucifer he was Jean de
Sainclair, and it wasn't until Le Roi de la Nuit that he settled on
being Léo Saint-Clair.

Between 1952 to 1955 a 22-volume heavily edited and updated reprint series
was published by Jaeger-d'Hauteville, with covers by Brantonne. La Hire's
son-in-law, who was behind the project, included a new novel, La Sorcière
Nue (The Naked Sorceress) in 1954.

The last Nyctalope story (according to the series' internal chronology and
not the revised dates of the later publications) was the novella Rien qu'une
Nuit (Only One Night), written in 1944 but taking place in 1941, in which
the Nyctalope appears to have succumbed to the charms of collaboration with
the Nazis, retroactively making him the first superhero to have actually
gone bad in his old age! Of course, this was written while the Nazis were
occupying France, and was probably not the author's choice for how to end
the character's saga.

L'Homme Qui Peut Vivre dans l'Eau (The Man Who Could Live Underwater) (serial.
in "Le Matin", 1908; rep. Juven, 1910; rep. in 2 vols., L'Homme Qui Peut
Vivre dans l'Eau (The Man Who Could Live Underwater) and Les Amours de l'Inconnu
(The Loves Of The Unknown), RDA, 1921)

Le Mystère des XV (The Mystery Of The XV) (serial. in "Le Matin",
1911; rep. in 2 vols. as Le Secret des XII (The Secret Of The XII) and Les
Conquérants de Mars (The Conquerors Of Mars), Jaeger, 1954)

The Nycatlope has made a tiny cameo in Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill's
League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, where
it was revealed he was a member of the French equivalent of the League, "Les
Hommes Mysterieux".

Much of the information on this page comes verbatim from
Cool French Comics, used with
permission. Likewise the images.